


Easy As Cheese, Easy As Pie

by Satchelfoot



Category: The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Cats, Comfort Food, Memory Loss, Post-Canon, Resurrection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:04:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satchelfoot/pseuds/Satchelfoot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A vignette of the Hempstock family, taking place many years after the events of the book.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Easy As Cheese, Easy As Pie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [finch (afinch)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afinch/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Easy As Cheese, Easy As Pie (Русский перевод)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1334818) by [lizzard_ash (bad_lynx)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bad_lynx/pseuds/lizzard_ash)



Eventually, of course, Lettie did return from the ocean, although she was not quite the same. Her hair had turned a very deep brown, and her nose may have become slightly more pointed than it was before. Also, she was twelve. She might be twelve for many, many years to come, but she knew that she would never be eleven again.   
She emerged fully clothed in light brown trousers, a periwinkle shirt, and a dark blue jacket, all of which dried along with the rest of her within a minute after she left the ocean. As the moisture retreated, so did her slight limp. In that first minute, Lettie felt a tugging pain in her leg that reminded her of that night, of what she had done and what had been done to her. But by the time she reached the house, she walked smoothly again and the memory had faded.  
She was not expected, but no one was shocked at her appearance, either. Her grandmother glanced up briefly from her knitting and then returned her gaze to the next stich, saying only, “Well, there you are, dear. Kettle’s on.” Her mother, entering the kitchen a moment later, did not give a start but gave Lettie a good looking-over, took hold of a lock of hair for a moment, and said only, “Chops for dinner tonight. Best get out to the garden and dig us up an onion or two.”  
Lettie nodded and went back out the door and made for the garden, absently pulling two furry cat tails from the ground as she went. The kittens, one blue-gray and the other a calico, stretched, shook themselves, and followed her to the garden, rubbing against her legs as she pulled up the onions. She placed the calico on her shoulders and took the blue-gray cat in her arms, balancing it with the onions held in her right hand. The cat sniffed the onions once and pulled its head back in some indignation before nestling close to Lettie’s chest.  
Back in the house, she put down a saucer of milk for each of the cats (the calico did not want to be dislodged from her shoulders and made a piteous “Re-arrrt” sound when she finally placed it on the floor) and washed the onions. Then, all of a sudden, something in the way the cats’ fur glistened in the light made her think of the last thing she could remember before she had awakened in the ocean.  
“When I… Did he… Is he…?” she asked Old Mrs. Hempstock.  
“He’s all right, pet,” said her grandmother, not looking up from her knitting. “He’s lived a full life, telling stories and the like. Been coming to see you in the ocean now and again. He’ll come around once more before he passes on, I’ve no doubt.”  
Lettie was going to ask her something else, but just then her mother appeared from the hallway in some haste. “It’s a good day to have you return to us, dear, though I hate to put you to work right away. Mother, the bacteria have begun eating the past again, and I can’t say a word to stop ’em.”  
Old Mrs. Hempstock still did not look up from her knitting immediately, but murmured, “Oh, my, oh, my,” as she worked her way to the end of a row. Once she had reached a stopping point, she put her yarn and needles and unfinished shawl up on the mantel and pulled a long and aged tablecloth from the space next to her chair. Bringing the tablecloth to the kitchen, she motioned Lettie to help her spread it across the table.  
“You remember, my dear, that bacteria do not care to be ordered around,” said Ginnie Hempstock as her daughter smoothed out the tablecloth. “Your grandmother can usually speak to them briefly and have them at her service, but these are a different strain that you might see once in many a century: old enough to have appetites beyond the natural way of things, young enough that they don’t understand the rules or answer to any kind of persuasion or threat. I believe you were just a babe the last time we saw anything like it.”  
“Confounded wigglers,” Old Mrs. Hempstock said as she placed the tea, with apparent judiciousness, on a spot on the tablecloth that she would not immediately need to read. “Should be as easy as cheese, making them do right, but they do get their own notions.”  
“These little ones,” continued Ginnie Hempstock, “have been feeding on the memories of more’n a dozen people over in town. Let ‘em keep it up and we risking bringing down the hunger birds again. Beggin’ your pardon, dear,” she added, for Lettie had momentarily gone very pale. “Only I’m worried as these critters are more dangerous than the bigger, louder things we’ve seen before: you can’t reason with ‘em, you can’t frighten ‘em, and you can’t really kill ‘em to make it last, not that we’d want to, the poor things.”  
“Your mother and I,” said Old Mrs. Hempstock, “have talked through the traditional manner of dealing with these wigglers, but with you here I think we can try something new, if you’re willin’.”  
“I’m rested, Grandmother,” said Lettie, her accent thickening slightly. “I’d like nothing more than to help another creature rest, whatever its size. What’ll we be doin’ with these things? What sort of recollections are they eatin’?”  
“Memories of pie,” said her grandmother solemnly. “The poor things dearly want to know what a good pie tastes like, but they can only taste it by consumin’ the memories of them as have et an especially tasty pie in their lives. So you’re goin’ to gather the best wild apples from the north end of our land and we’re goin’ to make a _hexcellent_ pie, the best pie any of us have ever tasted, which is sayin’ something when you get to be as old as me. Then you’re a-going to eat it and we’ll feed the memory of it to the wigglers to see if it calms the poor things. Which means you’ll not remember that you ever et such a fantastic pie, but a Hempstock knows what must be done.”  
Lettie was not entirely sure this made sense and wondered, not for the first time, if her grandmother was having her on. But she had not had a taste of pie in many years, and she decided not to think too hard on it. She grabbed a large bag from the kitchen and set off. The calico dashed out after her just before the door closed; the blue-gray cat was fast asleep at the foot of Old Mrs. Hempstock’s chair.  
Lettie and the cat (who mewed at her incessantly for a few minutes before accepting that it would not be riding on her shoulders during this walk, and then simply trotted ahead of her through the fields) made their way to a grove of apple trees at edge of the long end of the land. Within the grove, it always seemed to be October, no matter what time of year it was in the land surrounding it, and the apples were always crisp and tart. Lettie climbed up a tree full of Braeburns with the cat scrabbling up behind her trying to teach itself how to climb a fairly steep tree. It finally settled on a branch opposite Lettie and watched her fill the bag with the biggest apples, not one of which she ate off the tree, tempted as she might have been.  
The day had settled into deep dusk by the time they got back to the house. Old Mrs. Hempstock had moved to the kitchen and begun to work butter and flour together with her hands to make a double crust. Lettie and Ginnie Hempstock immediately set to work peeling and chopping the apples, while the calico cat immediately made a nuisance of itself by jumping on the counter in front of them and trying to impose itself between Lettie and the apples. Lettie lightly tossed an apple core at it, and the cat made a disgusted sound and went off to bother the still-sleeping blue-gray cat.  
No more than an hour and a half later, a pie emerged from the oven, the most perfectly golden brown, flaky-crusted pie any of them had ever seen, with the juice from the apples just beginning to bubble up past the crust’s surface. Lettie was given a tremendous slice, piping hot, which she blew on and nibbled and finally ate as slowly as she could, savoring every crunch of the crust, every hint of cinnamon, and every last taste of the bright October apples. And then Old Mrs. Hempstock snipped here and stitched there, and the bacteria, with whatever awareness was given them, tasted the pie as well, and were satisfied, and no longer consumed anyone’s memories of pies gone by.  
At least, that was what Lettie’s grandmother told her. And Lettie did not question it. And if she distinctly remembered every moment of that most glorious slice of pie, she never mentioned it—unless she whispered something to the calico cat, which had a fair way of keeping a secret.


End file.
